The Dying Light (32 page)

“It’s the situation which is extraordinary,” said Roche. “But again, I thank you for your cooperation.”

“As I said, by helping you we help ourselves,” the Auditor told her. She made no reference to Alik, the outrigger who had attacked Roche, but the knowledge of what she had done hung heavily upon the meeting. “Now, how exactly can we go about it?”

Roche took a deep breath. “You know that I have two friends held captive by Linegar Rufo in Galine Four. I intend to liberate them by any means possible. While doing so, I hope to obtain the information that has been gathered since Galine Four’s arrival in this system; this information should prove helpful in our investigation of the clone warriors.

“In return for your help in these matters, we will give you safe passage from this system. It may mean dismantling the spines to squeeze them into the holds, but we’ll do it. If I get out of here alive, so will you.”

“A fair exchange,” said Auditor Byrne. “But given the situation, I wouldn’t have accepted anything less.”

“There is one other thing,” said Roche. “Rufo ordered the inaction of his observers around Aro, and as such is in part responsible for the destruction of Wide Berth’s clan. I don’t necessarily condone vengeance, but I will assist you in bringing him to justice, should you choose to do so.”

Private lasers darted between the gathered outriggers.

“Thank you, Morgan,” said Byrne. “But it is us whom Rufo has wronged, and if he is to answer for this, then it must be to us alone. It is necessary for the grief-healing of the clan.”

“Roche, that isn’t fair!” Disisto exclaimed. “At least grant Linegar the right of reply before you—”

“I warned you, Disisto. Ameidio, shut him out.” Disisto’s visor went black; his transmissions ceased in mid-outrage.

“How about you, Myer? Got a problem with this?”

Mavalhin looked at Roche steadily for a few seconds. “Not at all, Morgan. This is your show.”

“Okay,” she said, turning from the pilot. “Byrne, before we go into details, I need to ask you something. Idil said that she had taken over the all-suit of an older clan member when she died. Do you have any other such empty suits around?”

“We have six empty suits at this time, plus another fifteen recovered from Wide Berth. All are tethered to their respective spines. Why?”

“The Box can teleoperate them along with some of the
Ana Vereine’s
ancillary vessels and any others we can lay our hands on. They’ll only be decoys, but the more points we can attack from, the better.”

“Consider them at your disposal,” said Byrne.

“Excellent,” said Roche. “And if there are any of you reluctant to fight, you are welcome to stay on board the
Ana Vereine
during the attack—just as long as we have use of your suit to add to our decoys.”

“Without our suits, we are nothing,” said one of the outriggers, a statement that provoked a general susurrus of agreement.

“I understand that,” Roche put in quickly. “But at least this way you might still survive even if your all-suit was damaged. We can arrange some sort of sealed environment in the ship, if you like—even teleop facilities so you can still fly your suit. And should the worst occur, then I’m sure a replacement could be built to specifications at a later date.”

While her concern for the outriggers was genuine, that was not her main motive for the proposal. She was more interested in seeing who accepted the offer—and who
didn’t.
An all-suit would be a convenient place for a fugitive to hide. If the clone warrior
had
infiltrated the spine, this would narrow down the suspects.

“We shall take your words into consideration,” said Byrne. “Now, what about strategy?”

“Well, we need a plan that will give us time to get in, do what we have to do, then get out again,” said Roche. “And it isn’t going to be easy. A sneak attack by a small number of scouts would be worse than useless. They’d eventually be detected, and that would warn Rufo that a larger attack was imminent, enabling him to prepare his defenses.

“Sneaking up on them isn’t an option either,” she continued. “They’re not blind and they’ll be expecting us to try something. Even a small group will stick out in a featureless sky. They’d be shot down long before they’d get anywhere near the station.

“So, our best hope lies in getting a large assembly as close as possible without being seen and striking hard and fast. If we can penetrate their defenses quickly and get inside, the battle becomes one of internal security. That will take the pressure off the attacking force, allowing it to conserve resources and regroup if necessary. That’s assuming of course that we don’t completely knock out their defenses on the first pass; if we can do that, getting in and out will be considerably easier.”

She looked around the quorum. Not being able to see the expressions of those she was addressing was frustrating, but the fact that there was no movement whatsoever from the all-suits gave her the impression she was at least being listened to.

“We do have something of an edge,” Roche went on. “Once I get the Box inside the station, we can use it to shut down external security. This will only work for a while—until they manage to re-route it through the internal security shell—but we need all the time we can get. The Box should also be able to tell us where Maii and Cane are held in the station. I doubt they’ll be together, so I imagine the landing party will have a lot to do. It’s basically me and Ameidio versus the entire internal security, since we’re the only ones with legs.”

She glanced over at Mavalhin. “Disisto has told me he doesn’t want to assist us against his employer, but I’m hoping Myer Mavalhin here will be able to give us some insight into the operation of Galine Four: blind spots or security weaknesses, points of entry, ways to move freely inside, weapons caches—that kind of thing. Any help he can provide would be useful at this point.”

Mavalhin looked over to Disisto’s blacked-out suit floating beside him, then back to Roche. “I’ll do what I can,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Then you will be part of the boarding party, too.”

“But can he be trusted?” said one outrigger.

“We’ll find that out soon enough, I guess,” Roche replied. Then, addressing the quorum as a whole, she said, “Now, does anyone have any suggestions? I presume some of you have had combat experience?”

“Unfortunately, we all have,” said Auditor Byrne. “We are better at running than fighting, but we stand up for ourselves when we have to. As you know, we possess many tools that can serve as weapons. Many of them would be useful in the attack.”

“Good,” Roche said. “They’ll add some mass to the assault. The
Ana Vereine
has a stockpile of surveillance micromachines. The Box might be able to reconfigure some to attack the station’s external surfaces—either the observation systems or the hull itself. Do you have any way to deliver such devices en masse?”

“We have nano seeders,” said Lud. “Bullet-shaped and grain-sized. We could send a cloud in ahead of us. They might take it for nothing more than space junk—until it starts eating into them.”

“Perfect. Anyone else?”

“What about the crust-rippers?” asked another outrigger.

“Too destructive,” said Lud.

“We could use them as a threat. Load Wide Berth spine with as many as we’ve got and threaten to ram if they don’t surrender.”

“An empty threat,” said Idil. “We could never use them. If we did, the explosion would wipe out everything for a million cubic kilometers. Including the Ana
Vereine
and our only way out of here.”

“We can use ion drilling cannon to cut through the hull if the micromachines don’t work,” suggested another.

“And blind singleships with spectrometry bombs,” said yet another

“And we still have the leftover slag from the asteroids we carved before everything went wrong,” said Lud. “We could use it as cover for the nano seeders. Mostly carbon and ice, a bit of iron, nice and irregular in size and shape. The seeders will blend right in.”

“Good thinking,” said Byrne.

“We also have access to the subsystems of a dozen or so prowling mines,” said one. “They are an older make and easily subverted, the same ones the clone warrior used to destroy the Armada base around Cemenid.”

“Has anyone considered using drill rigs to boost our own thrust?” came still another suggestion.

Roche relaxed slightly in the suit and let them workshop. She noticed Haid watching her to one side, and signaled him privately, reducing the volume of the outriggers’ chatter to a minimum.

“What do you think? Do we have a chance?”

“Depends on how far Rufo will go to keep what he has,” Haid replied. “If his life depends on it, he’s going to do everything in his power to get rid of us once and for all. Last time he at least tried to pretend that he was doing the right thing. This time there’ll be no charades.”

“That’s true,” said Roche. “He knows we have Disisto and Myer. If we didn’t know the truth by now, then we wouldn’t be worth worrying about in the first place.”

“And
do
we know the truth? Even now?”

“I’m sure we don’t,” Roche said. “Not entirely. But I know we’re a damn sight closer than we were a few days ago.”

She quickly returned her attention to the quorum when she heard someone ask:

“What do we do if something goes wrong?”

“If something goes wrong, we’ll surrender,” Roche said. “That is,
I
will surrender, not you. If we let them have the
Ana Vereine,
they’ll be probably be happy.”

“And what happens to you then?”

“That’s up to Rufo,” she said. “It should be no concern of yours. Don’t even think of trying to rescue us; you should concentrate on hiding. Galine Four won’t be here forever, and there’s always a chance a rescue team will arrive in time. Remember, the collapse of the system is still some weeks away.”

“If that is your wish,” said Byrne, “we will abide by it.”

“Good.” Despite what she and the Box had decided, Roche hoped it wouldn’t come to that. “Now, Myer. Any suggestions on how to get in?”

The pilot cleared his throat. “Well, everything will be locked up pretty tight, as you can imagine.”

“Yes, but despite the Kesh, it’s not a military station,” she pointed out. “There must be some weak points.”

“Of course there are. Or rather there
were.
I don’t know if anything will have changed since I last looked.”

“I guess that’s a risk we’ll just have to take.” She fought the urge to tell him to stop procrastinating. Antagonizing him now would be counterproductive.

“The best bet would probably be the old freight transfer point on deck 17D. No one’s used it for months, so the old codes should still work. And if they don’t, we can always cut through. They shut it down because of an acid spill; the seals are corroded and could be nice and brittle. Bad for safety, but good for you. I mean,
us
.”

Roche ignored the slip. “How many singleships does the station have, and what other defensive measures can we expect?”

“There are usually fifteen singleships at the ready, from a pool of thirty. I don’t know how many you wrecked when you left. The station has the usual stock of E-shields and anti-assault cannon. Nothing too destructive. Getting close enough to get in shouldn’t be too much of a problem. It’s once you’re in that you’ll have difficulty.”

“Go on.”

“Well, you’ve seen it. It’s big and full of people. Bad enough that you want to get to one specific area—but two, or even three? If I wasn’t coming with you, I wouldn’t give you any chance at all.”

“That’s exactly
why
you’re coming with us, Myer.”

“So I gathered,” he said. “Anyway, you’ll need to bypass as much as possible. Try to keep us off the monitors, or at least covered somehow. If your AI can’t do that, you’ll have to arrange distractions. Hit them from every angle and they won’t know where to concentrate their efforts. You might be able to slip through that way.”

That was pretty much what she’d been thinking; maybe not so destructive as blowing up a scutter, though, like last time. “No loopholes we can utilize?”

“Not without knowing exactly where we’re going.”

“No way of cracking into the second security level?”

“None I’m aware of. Disisto might know, though.”

“And he wouldn’t tell me if he did.” She thought for a second. “I’m not sure I agree that getting in will be easy. The singleships are faster than all-suits, better armed
and
armored. There are more of us, and sheer numbers
may
win the day, but on the other hand they might not. If we plan for every contingency, we might just turn things around to our favor; at the very least, we’ll save lives.

“Auditor Byrne, we’ll leave you to sort out who wants to fight and who wants to piggyback on the
Ana Vereine.
I’ll download the schematics of the station and any other relevant data once I can lay my hands on it so you can discuss possible tactics and ways to minimize your losses.

“Meanwhile, we’ll work out what to do from our end. We have some time to play with, anyway. Even at full burn, it’d take us a day or two to reach the station from here.”

“Unless it’s moved,” said Haid.

“Yes, but there’s not much we can do about that from here—not with the information lags as they are.”

“Very well, Morgan Roche.” The sharp-tipped all-suit bobbed gently in the microgravity; some of the outriggers around her were already breaking ranks. “We will keep you informed of our progress.”

Auditor Byrne’s silver tear was among the last to leave. Roche waited for them all to disperse before moving herself. She scanned the skies briefly before she did, and in doing so noticed Yarrow, all but invisible in his black all-suit, hanging like an accusation in the starless sky.

Roche felt as though the mysterious outrigger was watching her, and the idea of this made her feel uncomfortable. Why would he have saved her if he wasn’t who Byrne thought he was? So far he had done nothing to arouse her suspicion, except be silent.

She stared back at him for a few minutes, but when it was apparent he wasn’t going to move, she turned away and started tugging Disisto’s limp suit back into the courier’s airlock. When she glanced back a moment later, she saw Yarrow’s all-suit disappearing into one of the moon’s shafts.